A Brief History of Almonds Originating on the mountain slopes of Central Asia, almonds once grew wild along the famed Silk Road that connected China with the West. Here, their high nutritional value and long storage life made them popular among early traders and explorers. In fact, travelers are often credited with having aided the rapid expansion of almonds throughout the ancient world. Flourishing in hot, arid climates, almonds soon spread across the Middle East to Northern Africa, the Mediterranean and parts of Europe. In many early societies, the almond acquired heavy symbolic as well as material value. Ancient pagans worshiped almonds as fertility charms. Romans showered their newlyweds with them as a marriage blessing. And writers and artists from Shakespeare to Van Gogh immortalized them in their work. A valuable commodity, the almond also played a key role in many early economies including those of France, Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Morocco, Turkey and Tunisia. It was Spanish missionaries who first brought the almond to the shores of the New World. Father Junipero Serra attempted to grow almond trees up and down the California coast but enjoyed little success due to the cool, wet weather of the coastal missions. Nearly a century later, enterprising pioneers discovered that California’s Central Valley provided the perfect Mediterranean conditions under which the almond had thrived for centuries. By the late nineteenth century, research and careful crossbreeding had produced many of the almond varieties that we enjoy today, and had launched a prosperous new California industry. Today, California is still the only place in North America where almonds are grown commercially. A thriving business, California’s total almond yield has nearly quadrupled in the last 30 years thanks largely to advanced methods of production, sorting, hulling and processing. The Growth Cycle of An Almond In the fall, the almond’s tiny green buds begin to develop flower parts around their outer edges. A cold December followed by a mild January and February results in an explosion of spectacular, pinkish-white almond blossoms. During this phase, bees are brought in to pollinate alternating rows of almond varieties. Because almond trees require cross-pollination, at least two different almond species are necessary for a productive orchard. After the last of the blossoms’ petals drop and the tree’s branches are thick with leaves, fuzzy green fruit begins to appear. This fruit, known as the “hull,” continues to harden and mature until it splits open around July. Between late summer and early fall, this split widens, eventually revealing the “kernel” or nut inside. At harvest time, orchard floors are swept clean, and state-of-the-art “tree shakers” knock the unshelled nuts to the ground where they remain for a brief period of time to dry. Swept into rows, the dried nuts are then collected and taken away to be hulled and processed. For more information about almonds, please visit: Almond Board of California